Out of My League
by Llybian Minamino
Summary: Author Milly Gleason takes a stab at writing a book about the Johto Pokemon League despite the fact that her own childhood attempt at taking the league challenge ended in embarrassing failure. She's joined by her sister Daphne and Daphne's boyfriend Roy as they retrace the steps of trainers, discuss the dangers of the journey, uncover the history of the league and interview leaders
1. Chapter 1

**Out of My League**

**By Mildred A. Gleason**

* * *

_Disclaimer_

_Upon request, some names and identifying details have been changed in the interest of privacy protection._

* * *

_Dedicated to Daph, of course—for the times she put up with my bullshit and, more importantly, the times she refused to._

* * *

**Prologue.**

I sat back in the office chair until I heard a squeak which informed me that if I leaned any further back I'd tip over. "I don't like it," I said.

My editor, Cathy, clutching a pencil between her fingers from the other side of her desk, sighed. "And what _exactly_ don't you like about it? It's cute, it's pithy, it gets across the idea that the story's going to be about the Pokemon League without being too obvious about it—it's just what we need in a title."

I twisted my face into a grimace. "But it's a little _too_ pre-packaged if you know what I mean," I explained. "I mean, it's just to the point where it sounds kind of generic. And anyway," I added in a low mutter, "it'd be more accurate to call it 'Out of My _Mind_.'"

"Pre-packaged is a good thing," Cathy returned. "It lets people know what they're getting into." She rolled her eyes. "It's not like we haven't been over this before, Milly."

And we'd probably _keep_ going over it. I scooched my chair a little closer to her desk. "…Did you by any chance get the list of titles I suggested?" I asked, attempting a casual air.

She wrinkled her nose as though I was referring to some nasty thing living in the wall of her shower. "I did," she answered distantly.

"…Well?" I prodded, knowing what the answer would inevitably be, but determined to incite it.

"They were, in a word," she said, wrinkled nose tilted high up in the air, "…awful."

"Oh, come on!" I exclaimed, sitting upward so rapidly that the office chair I was on let out a squawk as it rocketed upright. "'Please Don't League Me?' 'League Me Alone?' That stuff is gold!"

"More like fool's gold," Cathy responded dully. She reached over to a stack of papers until she found the one she was looking for and the flipped it over to the back, reading it over with a crinkled forehead. "And those weren't even the worst you came up with," she said, in disbelief as to how that was even possible. "I mean, 'If I League Here Tomorrow Will You Still Remember Me?'" she read incredulously. "Seriously?"

I regarded her carefully for a moment. "…Why don't you like good music?" I demanded coldly.

She took off her glasses and rubbed her temples. "We're not talking about _good_ music—we're talking about bad puns."

I shrugged. "But that's the point. They're supposed to be bad. That's what makes them funny."

"Yes, but, and follow me on this," she said patiently, "to the people who _don't_ get that they're purposefully bad they just end up looking… bad."

I pursed my lips, unable to think of a comeback. It's very annoying when she's right.

And she wouldn't leave it there, either. "Do you recall the article you wrote for the Goldenrod Gazette profiling breeders that got approximately no attention at all?" she asked. When I nodded glumly she continued: "And… what was that called again?"

I sighed. "'Extra! Extra! Breed All About It,'" I answered. "But that's not my fault. Breeders are just boring. A title can only do so much."

"And what about your piece on Pokemon Centers, hmm?" she continued, ignoring me. "The one that got mentioned on news stations as far away as Sinnoh and made it into last year's anthology? I believe it was called: 'Who's Paying For It?: The Price of Free Centers.' And… what did you want to call it?"

I grumbled something.

"What was that?"

"…'Bad Medicine and Chansey Budgeting,'" I said more clearly. "Either that or 'There is No Nurse Joy in PokeVille.'" I fidgeted in my chair. "Anyway, you've made your point already."

"Right," she said, a triumphant gleam in her eye. "So why don't you do your job and let the marketing folks do theirs—making your book look as good as possible."

"Alright, alright," I muttered. "'Out of My League' it is. I don't suppose you could add 'Out of My Mind and Out of Fruit Snacks' after it?"

"We'll see," she said in a tone that I knew meant 'no.'

For a moment neither one of us said anything. There was nothing but the _click, click, click_ of the Newton's cradle she always kept on her desk for some reason I've never been able to figure out. Perhaps she _wants_ to be driven insane.

"Well, now that that's sorted out, you'll need to see Teddy down in legal," she said, an acidic little smile at the fate she was consigning me to on her face. "He has _a lot_ to say to you."

"I can imagine," I said glumly.

"And I'll be calling you shortly about setting up an interview at the Radio Tower," she said, smoothing back her mostly-grey-with-a-hint-of-amber hair. "I've been playing phone tag with Mary for the better part of a week, but I think they'll be able to squeeze you in some time shortly before or after the release."

"Oh… wonderful," I answered in non-sincerity mode. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy interviews. I _love_ interviews even when they're nerve-wracking. It's just that the whole exercise takes on a different shade when the _other person_ gets to ask the questions. That makes it seem somehow unfair.

"Don't do that thing where you undertalk for the first half of the interview and then overtalk all through the second half," she counseled, in the same tone my mother used when I was six to beseech me not to talk with my mouth full. "Just keep it nice and even. I've got a good feeling about this one, Milly. If it sells well then we might have a series on our hands—you could do the same treatment in Kanto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, maybe even Unova."

"Wouldn't that get kind of…" I mentally scratched out 'boring' and substituted with, "repetitive?"

"Not if _you're_ doing your job right," she added pointedly.

I tilted my eyes heavenward, but decided not to make an argument about a hypothetical situation. After all, maybe this book will only be bought by my family members and those in need of a hefty drink coaster. No sense in worrying about now. "Right," I answered.

She turned over to her computer screen as though to indicate she was done with me, before imparting one last chore. "And get going on some kind of introduction to it. It doesn't have to be long, but we just need a little more foundation here at the beginning."

"Sure," I said, getting up and patting down my jeans to make sure I hadn't stupidly dropped my wallet. "I'll send you a prologue right away."

"…And don't make me look bad in this one!" she added _shrewishly_ as I made my way out the door.

"Of course not," I called back, and sauntered out of the offices of Johto United Press. I tried to recall then, just when and how this modest little project spiraled completely out of my control.

I can't say with certainty exactly where it started because it sprung up from different directions. Oh, the eight-part interview series I'd been hoping to do with Johto's gym leaders seems like an easy place to put the blame. And I can't say that that wasn't a huge part of it. But that was practically a fluff piece. I knew I wasn't the best choice for a context-less set of interviews with trainers who actually know what they're talking about. I'm a zero-badge-winning trainer. I probably would've ended up asking them if they enjoyed skiing or if they were dating anyone. Pure human interest, almost nil Poke-interest.

For my money, my aforementioned article on Pokemon Centers is more to blame than that. When you get right down to it, the Pokemon Center system is a safety net for the many, _many_ minors hoboing it around the country chasing the dream of being the very best. My article questioned the sustainability of a free system like that and critiqued what I saw as out of control spending (did you know there are some Pokemon Centers with saunas and free massages? Screw my local spa! I'll just put on a backwards baseball cap and claim I want to be a Pokemon master! Pass me a loofa and some fancy bath salts.)

But despite my bitching, moaning and occasional kvetching about the bloated system and where the funding could and should be going… I must admit that, deep down, there is something very necessary about it. I mean, forget the very basic function of healing Pokemon. What we've got here are a bunch of scraggly little ten-year-olds running around completely unsupervised—many of them on their own for the first time in their itsy-bitsy lives. They _need_ a safe place like a Pokemon Center as a shelter from the dangers of the real world, which include humans, wild Pokemon, and their own stupidity.

And because of that, the whole thing got me questioning the wisdom of letting a bunch of prepubscents drop out of school to take up the art of vagrancy. Foolish, I know! But I'm hardly the first person to bring that up. There are whole groups focused on taking down the Pokemon Journey tradition, or at least mandating that the licensing age is raised from ten—Parents Against Underaged Training and the Stay in School Campaign are just two that I could mention. And, of course, the other side has their own advocacy groups: Parents of Future Pokemon Masters and Coordinators For a Better Tomorrow being the two major ones.

It's a divisive issue and, really, it has "Mommy wars" (a phrase that gets some journalists salivating) written all over it. But who's to say which one is the worse parent? The one who lets her kid leave home at ten with nothing but a Totodile between him and the evils or the world or the one who keeps him in a gated community with a tracking chip lodged in his stomach? …Probably the tracking chip one, because that's kind of messed up, but still! Is it worse to be underprotective or overprotective? History seems to weigh in on this on a case by case basis… and sometimes with disastrous results.

But is the league challenge worth the risk? Is teaching kids the values of hard work, friendship, and map-reading worth sacrificing their safety (and not teaching them any more than basic arithmetic)? I've met people who, win or lose, credit the league with the people they are today. Just the same, it doesn't always turn out that way. I'm not even talking about the heavy stuff—the _real_ tragedies that can happen along the way. Let's save that for later, when I have the time and space to be really good and angry about it. Some people neglected their education for a dream they'll never fulfill—some people are _still_ obsessed with that dream long after its obvious to everyone that it's too late.

Some people, and this is a completely _random_ example, got lost in the forest and ran home crying to Mom with a scraped knee and a permanent terror of many-legged things with feelers.

No one you know, I assure you.

But what was I to do with this concept? Interview some newbie trainers? Didn't sound like something I'd want to do. I've gone on record many times as saying that children smell. That they are covered in a layer of dirt and viscous slime—like grubs. Not yet fully metamorphosed into their adult forms.

I do not say this to children themselves, because I do not wish to be kicked in the shins or have flaming shit left on my doorstep. You understand, I'm sure.

And, alright, all that about children is probably an overstatement. There's many a lovely, well-adjusted school-aged kid out there who doesn't pick their nose or neglect basic hygiene. But even talking to them didn't seem like it'd be enough. I was curious about the trainers, but it was more than the trainers I was thinking about. What about the road they traveled? Their Pokemon? The obstacles along the way? What can you say about something that is essentially a professional sport that's overrun with children? What do you say about the _League?_ How did it get here, why is it this way, and will it always be this way?

I never thought I'd actually put on my boots and walk that road again, even if it was just as an observer. Though, I don't know how much of the road you could even say that I walked initially. Route 34? A little bit of the Ilex Forest? I'm not even sure my childhood journey even _counts_ as a Pokemon Journey. But yet, I seemed to be poised to go over that trail so many others had passed through.

I wasn't going to do it. I really wasn't. Because I don't like, you know, children, or walking for prolonged periods, or camping in the woods, or wild animals, or pollen, or uncarpeted surfaces or anything really. But I kept collecting information. I kept planning. Not seriously! Oh no! This was just a… hobby. Just something to take my mind off my real projects. I wasn't going to really take it up.

…And then, somehow, at the end of all that not-at-all-serious research and preparation I found myself with a mountain of data I couldn't justify not using, a fully drafted and accepted proposal, a generous advance, packed bags, and the dumb realization that this was _going_ to happen.

"Oh, and make sure to get someone to go with you," I recalled Cathy telling me over the phone many months ago when the project was just beginning in earnest. "You should know by now that you're not interesting enough to sustain a narrative by yourself."

"Thanks for the reminder," I croaked grimly, my throat a husk of nerves and bad health.

"Good luck out on the trail," Cathy trilled. "Be careful a Spinarak doesn't crawl into your sleeping bag and lay eggs there."

I'd like to think I responded with something pithy and clever, but in all likelihood I probably just let out an inarticulate groan and hung up.


	2. Daphne and Roy

**Chapter 1. Daphne and Roy.**

I cupped my home phone in my hands and let out a sigh. I'd intended to call earlier in the day, I really had. But I kept thinking of other things I had to do and it had just… been swept to the side. Now, with my cardboard-flavored pizza long finished and night falling, I knew I had to get this over with or it would be put off until tomorrow again.

My hand drifted over to the number keypad and I momentarily enjoyed the novelty of dialing a number that I could actually remember instead of using my contacts feature. I held it up to my ear and let it ring.

After the second ring, the channel opened. "Hello?" said a voice on the other side.

I took a deep breath and summoned up some insincere energy and cheer. "Hi, sis!" I chirped. "How you doing?"

There was a long, suspicion-laden pause. Finally the voice replied: "Milly… are you doing another book?"

I froze. Somehow I'd tipped my hand from the start. "…Why would you think that, Daph?" I asked in a would-be casual voice.

"Because you don't call me 'sis,'" she reasoned. "So I thought maybe you were trying to introduce me or something. You know, as a character."

"What? No! I would never do something so… so cheap and lazy!" I insisted in mock-offense. I pause for a moment. "…But seriously, I am doing another book. Wanna come along? Or are you busy?"

I prayed she wouldn't be busy. I hadn't bothered to make a list of coercible traveling companions yet because it was clear that Daph would top the list. If she said no _then_ I'd need to make a list.

"Umm… maybe, actually," Daphne answered, ballooning my hopes. I heard a rustling from the other end of the line that might've been her shuffling through her day-planner. "I've got to do a wedding at the end of the week, but after that I'm pretty much free. This isn't another ghost thing, is it?"

My loyal reader(s?) will recall my sister Daphne accompanied me during the writing of _Haunts of the Pokemon World,_ playing the dual-role of photography expert and sole voice of reason.

"Nope, not at all," I answered. "It's actually about the Pokemon League."

"Really? You?" she asked in a tone I've decided to not let offend me. "Well, I guess that could be interesting," she admitted. "Will I get to use any of my frequent flyer miles?"

I sucked in air through my teeth. This was the part of the pitch I'd been most worried about, beyond the prospect of Daph simply being too busy to come along. We'd flown to all the major continents during _Haunts of the Pokemon World_, but for this subject…

"I'm afraid not," I admitted. "We'll basically be visiting points of interest all around Johto… but we'll be walking."

"Seriously?" she asked. "You don't even like hiking. Why can't we drive?"

"Well, we're trying to get that real Pokemon journey experience," I explained, shifting position in my armchair so that my legs were underneath me. "And trainers just starting out don't drive."

"Rich older ones do," Daphne pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, but if I was going to talk about the rich kid Pokemon trainer experience, then I'd just buy some rare Pokemon, pay someone to train them, sit back and sunbathe poolside. That doesn't make a great book."

"But it would make a good teen drama," Daph quipped.

I groaned. "They probably already have one like that. But that's not the point, anyway. Do you think you could—"

My words were cut off by heavy breathing, as though someone on the line had their mouth too close to the receiver. I say "someone," but it was more like "something." It was a high voice, strange and ethereal. There was a rasp to it—a dread.

"…What the hell is that?" Daph asked, voice heightening in concern.

"Just a second," I apologized. I turned to glare into my darkening house. "Misdreavus! Get off the line! That's not funny!"

The breathing stopped. There was a click from upstairs as though the phone by my bed was being slotted back into its cradle.

There was dumfounded silence from my sister's end. "…Why is your Pokemon using the phone?" she finally asked.

"Oh, Misdreavus is just trying to convince me that dead people are calling the house," I said, running a hand through my hair in mild annoyance.

"I see," Daphne responded. "That's… terrifying."

"I know, right?" I said. "I couldn't sleep for days until I figured out that—"

"Not that," Daphne interrupted. "I just imagined what would happen if Snubbull figured out how to order pizza."

I tried to picture the blubbery little snaggle-toothed monstrosity. "He would eat until he died," I concluded. "But he would die happy."

"Anyway, my badly behaved ghost and your fat dog aside," I launched back in, "what do you say about taking the old Johto journey with me?"

There was a tense silence. "Well…" she trailed off. "Okay. I suppose I can't let you out there all by yourself to get eaten up by an Ursaring."

"Of course," I said, after I'd finished my silent cheer. "If anyone's going to get eaten by an Ursaring we should do it _together."_

"Hey, I was just thinking," Daphne cut-in, ignoring my proposed Ursaring death-pact, "Can I bring Roy along?"

I let out a scoff before I'd managed to properly contain it. "Him? Doesn't he have to work?" I asked, not caring a wit for Daphne's boyfriend's work schedule but caring much more than a wit over an excuse not to bring him along.

"He got let go from the Poke Mart a few weeks ago," Daphne answered regretfully.

"What? No. I can't imagine them letting such a valuable worker slip away," I deadpanned. "But surely someone with his skill-set will find a new job in no time. I hear McMiltank's is hiring. I wouldn't want to get in the way of him landing his dream job."

"I think he could actually be a big help to you, Milly," Daphne insisted. "He went on a Pokemon journey when he was younger. And like a _real_ journey. Not the thing you did that didn't even last a week."

"I don't see why we're making arbitrary judgments on what is and isn't a journey," I blustered.

But I knew there was really no getting around the Roy-issue. And it'd be worth it just to get Daph to come along. I tried to console myself with the idea that if there did happen to be an Ursaring attack, they'd probably go for Roy first. After all, he eats a lot of beef jerky. He's probably much more delicious than me or Daphne.

"Alright, fine," I relented. "He can come too."

* * *

Consider graduation. At the end of high school and college it really means something. It's the culmination of a lot of time, effort and money—a worthy achievement. Elementary school and junior high graduations, however, always seemed to me to be just an excuse for parents to dress their kids up in embarrassing clothes and take pictures of them. Turns out I was wrong. Elementary school graduation ceremonies aren't a waste of time at all. After all, for many of the graduates, it'll be the last diploma that they'll ever get.

Despite the fact that trainer's licenses can be received as early as age ten, the most common age of new trainers, according to the multi-regional Juniper-Hvam study, is twelve. These would be the kids whose parents insist that their children at the very least develop a few math skills and basic reading comprehension, but don't value education enough to make them go anywhere beyond that. Or perhaps they _do_ value education more than that, but just want their kids out of the house before they enter the grotesque stage of puberty? If that's the case, then it's not like I can really blame them for that.

Grade-school graduation as a standard is not as silly as it sounds. Oh, sure, most high-paying jobs are still situated at the higher end of the education spectrum. But among low-paying jobs, higher consideration is given to applicants that at the very least completed grade school, and even more to those who made it all the way through junior high without bugging out to catch 'em all.

Let us consider Roy a sort of exhibit A; a trainer with a very tiny leg-up on those who started at age ten; a trainer whose last school experience over a decade ago was in the fifth grade.

When Daphne first started dating him he kept talking about studying up, about taking some equivalency tests and saving up for night school—about getting out of his dead-end income bracket _somehow_.

I don't hear a lot of talk from him about that nowadays, and I'm not exactly holding my breath to see him in a graduation gown and a mortarboard. I'm far more used to seeing him in the same attire he was wearing as Daphne and I walked into his apartment so that we could all go out shopping for supplies for our expedition around Johto.

He wore a grey sweatshirt with a faded red insignia for some sports team I was only vaguely aware of and a pair of jeans that looked like they were on their sixth day. He sat on the floor, a game controller in his hands. A glance at the television screen didn't tell me what game he was playing, only that it involved shooting people and then humping their corpses.

"G'morning, Roy," Daphne greeted him, striding over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, Daffy," he returned, grinning at the attention.

I wrinkled my nose. I'd always hated that little pet-name of his. Just what sort of term of endearment is "Daffy" anyway? It sounds more like an insult than anything. I just hope he doesn't decide to go around calling me "Millipede" or "Silly Milly" or some such thing. But then again, Roy probably isn't likely to label me with any terms of endearment. Lucky me.

"Long time, no see, Roy," I said, trying to be polite.

"Yeah," was all he said.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what she sees in him. …Alright, that's a lie. I at least know part of what she sees in him—such as the lightning-fast metabolism, the noticeably-in-use gym membership, the silky hair not entirely ruined by the gobs of hair gel he puts into it, and the prominent hazel eyes. But despite Daphne's eye for… aesthetics, I know deep down that she's not shallow enough to date Roy solely because of that. I'm just not sure what, if anything, of value lies beyond.

Certainly it couldn't have been neatness. All around the main room of the apartment were empty bowls and glasses. A coffee mug with the remnants of milk and cereal from that morning's breakfast signaled that dishwashing couldn't be put off for too much longer.

There was an empty box of pizza on the floor too—greasy around its cardboard edges. I wanted to use it as an excuse to be hypocritically grossed out by the way Roy kept house, but instead the smell from it just made me crave pepperoni.

"We going out to lunch first or the store?" Roy asked, perhaps reading my mind.

"Lunch," I answered immediately, not taking my eyes off the pizza box. "Let's go to Pippa's Pizza."

"Nah, I had pizza last night," Roy answered, holding down a button on his game controller to shut the console down.

My stomach growled wildly. "I had no idea," I responded.

* * *

We didn't get pizza because why should the person paying for the meal have any say in where it comes from? Instead I found myself girding my burger from the Snubbull sitting in the booth across from me, wedged between Daphne and the window. It stared intently over the arm I'd placed protectively between my plate and the dog. It licked its pink jowls covetously.

"…Don't you think that would be nice?" Daphne was saying.

"What?" I asked, snapping to attention. What can I say? Burger-girding takes a lot of focus.

"I was saying you guys should bring out your Pokemon too," Daphne repeated. "That way we can all eat together," she added, chewing on a fry.

"No way," Roy answer, his burger halfway to his mouth. "I'm not going to feed my team this junk," he continued, taking a large bite into the burger and letting a mixture of melted cheese and onion grease slide the meat down his throat.

"Umm…" I hesitated. I fished around in my purse for the Poke Ball. "I suppose we can give this another try."

"Miss!" Misdreavus cheered as he burst from his container in a flash of light. As always, his hair seemed to be blown by wind from some other plane of existence, independent of this world's atmospheric conditions.

Daphne's Snubbull glared at Misdreavus, apparently annoyed that he wasn't edible.

"Now, don't you reanimate anyone's food this time," I ordered him. "And for the love of all that's holy, _stay out of the girls' bathroom_."

Misdreavus let out a noise like a backwards sneeze that I hoped indicated that he intended to be good this time. The way he eyed the crowd worried me, though. It had an air of "Oooh, fresh meat!" about it.

"Still having trouble getting him to behave?" Daphne asked, stroking Snubbull's fat-folds idly.

Roy nearly choked on his burger. "That thing's a guy?!" he asked.

"Yeah, he's a guy," I answered. Even for the relatively brief period of time I'd owned Misdreavus, I'd gotten too used to this question to be properly annoyed at the assumption anymore. For Misdreavus's part, however, he blinked his long eyelashes at Roy and narrowed his pupils icily.

"If there were only girl Misdreavus, then there would be a lot of baby Misdreavus," Daphne added, attempting to be helpful. The problem with that argument is that most people are pretty uncomfortable with the thought of ghosts breeding in the first place.

"If he's a guy, then why do you dress him like that?" Roy asked. His mouth hung open suspiciously, as though he was convinced I was trying to purposefully emasculate the poor creature to push forward some hyper-feminine agenda. He crossed his legs under the table, as though fearing his potent manhood might force me into a random act of castration.

All I'm saying is that attitude is a little rich considering his girlfriend started her photography career by dressing up her very male Snubbull like a fairy princess.

"I didn't dress him any way," I answered coldly.

"What about that necklace?" he asked, gesturing with a fry.

"It's a _chain_," I insisted, using the term that I most hoped would restore my Pokemon's challenged manliness. "And anyway, that's part of his body. It's how he absorbs nutrients."

"Well… it's still weird," Roy trailed off, ending his flawless argument with a slurp of his straw.

"Misdreavus is a little weird," Daphne agreed with a smile, "but in the best possible way."

Misdreavus beamed at her. She probably didn't know it, but with that comment she'd likely put herself last on his list of people to dick around with. I was pretty sure Roy had landed number one. But then again, I think I'll always be Misdreavus's favorite.

"What's _really_ weird is that you have that thing in the first place," Roy countered, addressing me. "No offense, but you seem like a Bellsprout would be about all you could handle."

"Actually, she used to have a Bellsprout," Daphne put in.

"Used to?" Roy asked as I winced. "What happened to it?"

"I… forgot to water it," I admitted in a mumble.

"You _what?_" Roy repeated, mortified. "You're saying you killed a Bellsprout?"

"I didn't _kill_ anything!" I retorted. I'd like to say that my anger wasn't guilt-based, but that would be telling a lie—and telling a lie would make me feel guiltier (and therefore angrier). "It just got a little…"—I searched around for the right word—"wilted. Mom made me give him to a shelter and that was that."

I sunk morosely onto the table, beyond caring at this point that Snubbull was clawing his way toward my pickle spear. "Anyway, it's not my fault. I was _ten_. Give me a break—it's not like kids that age are that conscientious. People give their kids pets hoping it'll teach them responsibility, without thinking that the pet might prefer that his new owner was _already_ responsible."

Roy shrugged. "I handled my Pokemon just fine when I was twelve, and that's not much older."

"Well, good for you," I snapped. "Anyway," I went on, trying to brighten up by drawing my self-esteem from the present instead of the past, "Misdreavus is the much better fit for me."

"Misdreavus!" Misdreavus cooed from the midair.

"See, Misdreavus and I have a symbiotic relationship," I explained. "Since his kind nourishes themselves on fear, I don't even have to take time out of my schedule to feed him. He gets all the nutrition he needs from my neuroses."

"That's not a symbiotic relationship," Daphne corrected, a little too amused. "That's a parasitic relationship."

I opened my mouth, but suddenly found myself stuck for a response.

Misdreavus looked at me doubtfully. "Miss?"

"Hey, she gets something out of it," Roy commented. "She gets to pretend she knows something about Pokemon."

I resisted letting out a sigh. It didn't surprise me that we'd come to that. After all, Roy had pretty much made up his mind about both my writing and my knowledge of Pokemon from a rather biased, second-hand account of my article on Pokemon Centers. I like to think of this as a good thing because it means I can write whatever I want about him and he won't read it.

"Seriously, mind telling me why _you're_ the one writing a book about the Pokemon League instead of someone who's actually, like, won badges and stuff?" Roy pressed.

I ran my finger through the ring of condensation that my glass had left on the table, smearing lines of it into no discernible pattern. "There have been a lot of books about the League written by winners. I figure there's room enough for one by a loser."

I looked up at him in time to see him shaking his head slightly at me. "Besides that," I went on, "it's not like I'm writing a guidebook or anything, so being a champion battler really isn't the point. I'm not writing this book to give people advice on how to be better competitors or how to beat the leaders."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Why else would you write it?"

Over the past few months I'd read every book I could get my hands on about the Pokemon League. There are plenty of historical accounts of the establishment, but the bestsellers have always been personal accounts of high-level trainers, either talking about their experiences in a biographical sense or giving advice to would-be champs. The problem is that most people see the League as a thing that exists only to be beaten—any information that doesn't pertain to beating it is superfluous. To think of it as a historical institution, an economic driving force, or the master shaper of our society is… well, a waste of time, isn't it? Why would someone even bother when they could be jotting down trainer's tips?

"For context," I answered.

"Context?" Roy repeated, puzzled.

"Yes, Roy," I affirmed, nonchalantly slapping Snubbull's paw away from my fries. "_Context."_

* * *

A few frantic packing, unpacking and repacking-filled days later and I found myself trying in vain to get into a comfortable position on my bus seat. Daphne and I had decided to let Roy worry about getting the gear the woman at the camping store had convinced us to buy for our trip into the luggage rack.

I hadn't slept the night before and was hoping to get some sleep on the bus. It was going to be a long, _long_ trip New Bark Town. In the midst of my discomfort I was starting to regret not flying us there. But the distance hadn't seemed worthwhile, and New Bark didn't even have an airport so we'd have ended up driving at least part of the way. So I'd decided a Grey Houndoom bus was our best option.

"It still kinda seems like cheating," Daphne complained, sinking down into the seat next to me. "I mean, you were the one who said from the start that we had to walk it—like real trainers."

"We will walk," I insisted, "once we get there. We're only just driving to the starting line, that's all."

"New Bark, really?" Daphne asked, wrinkling her nose. "It's just such a small place. Even if we wanted to start at Violet City since it's supposed to have the easiest gym, we could just go up Route 35 and head toward the Ruins of Alph and then just circle back through."

I nodded grimly. This had been my original idea and it would've cut the time we had to be on the road by a not insignificant amount. But we weren't on the little quest to shave seconds off our commute. We were there to be thorough, damn it. At least, that's what I'd told my coffee this morning when it tried to talk me into skipping New Bark Town altogether. In the delirium of early morning, coffee can be very persuasive, but I managed to resist. Barely.

"New Bark may not have a gym, but it's still important," I replied. "It's one of those small towns that's managed to pump out quite a few well-known competitors, including our last champion. And anyway… that's where Professor Elm is."

"And he knows we're coming?" Daphne asked. She'd made it clear in the past that she didn't think surprise interviews were completely fair. I have grudgingly admitted that she has a point.

"Yeah. Already set up the interview," I answered.

I looked around at the filling bus. We'd be sharing the same air for the next sixteen hours and I wasn't sure if I liked the look of all of them.

"I just figured it'd be a good idea to start with the starters," I finished lamely. Funny, but it didn't seem like a good idea anymore.


	3. Small Town

**Chapter 2. Small Town.**

I have a theory about places like New Bark Town. You know, the kind of closed-off, out of the way and above all _tiny_ communities that would be rendered completely insignificant to the rest of the world if it weren't for the fact that someone absurdly famous was born there. Such places often become infused with a sense of wonder and mysticism. They can become a source of… anything, really—morality, common sense, and even, strangely enough, _reality_. I remember shortly after Lyra Soulis took down the Elite Four to become Johto and Kanto's new champion, there were a bunch of articles about her and about New Bark. In its rush to praise the then-tween champion, the _Violet Examiner_ expressed its gratitude that someone from "the _real_ Johto" had beaten the league. I hope it was as big a surprise to Lance as it was to me that Blackthorn City is part of the fictional Johto.

Small towns get a lot of credit for shaping these brilliant men and women—for teaching them values and self-reliance and hard work and a love of the simple life. Big cities, on the other hand, are, as we all known, bubbling cauldrons of indolent sin and decadence that can only instill in their residence a leech-like craving for the blood-toil of others. That's the narrative. And when writers at my own beloved _Goldenrod Gazette_ described New Barkian champion Lyra Soulis as being from "the heart and soul of Johto" (I get it, Mike. Hilarious. Puns are my department.) they weren't just stroking New Bark's small town ego. They were playing into that narrative.

The ironic thing, and something I'm sure you've figured out just from the newspaper names I've tossed around, is that some city folk preach this as gospel with as much fervor as people who actually live in small towns. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps they see places like New Bark town as manageable, safe and quiet after the noise and slog of places like Goldenrod. I often hear people claim that someday they're going to leave the city and retire in a place like that, but I know they'll be back. They won't be able to sleep without the sweet lullaby of car alarms.

As I stared into the scant main street that constituted downtown New Bark, with such thrilling attractions as the corner store and a dentist office, I knew exactly why young people who leave such towns are so determined to be successful. It's so they never have to come back to places like this again.

I had been bored on the bus, but it was the kind of boredom I could deal with. I'd mentally planned out my interview with Professor Elm, played every single car trip game I could remember with Daphne, and complained every half an hour about the fact the reading in moving vehicles gave me a headache. But getting out of the bus was something else. It was as though New Bark Town itself had wrapped me in a cloak of dullness. It was quiet… except for…

It was the windmills! The goddamn windmills! They were all over the place on raised white platforms coated in chipped paint. They filtered the waning light of the day, casting long shadows as they turned and turned. They were probably ear-splitting up at propeller-decapitation distance, but from where I was standing all you could hear was a low _thwooph-thwooph-faaa_. The sound was endless. Monotonous. Maddening. I glared up at the offensively rural things, tapped my sneakers together and muttered, "There's no place like home. There's no place like home." It didn't work. I was still in New Bark Town.

"So," Daphne said, enviably and mysteriously fresh as a daisy as she stepped out of the bus, "what do we do now?'

"Well," I began, deciding not to suggest murder-suicide pacts even as I stared into the swirling blades above, "I've got to get to my interview with Professor Elm. I guess you guys could just hang out at the Pokemon Center while I'm gone."

"There is no Pokemon Center in New Bark," Roy corrected me, huffing only slightly as he hauled our luggage from the top of the bus. "Everyone knows that."

I grimaced. This was one of the few areas I figured Roy would know what he was talking about. "That doesn't make sense," I whined, hoping to argue away the facts. "So many kids come down here to get their starters. What do they do without a center?"

"There's a healing machine at Professor Elm's lab," Roy explained.

"Well, that's great and all, but it doesn't exactly help all those newbie trainers looking for a place to stay," I countered sourly. In my defense I think everything between my knees and my shoulders had gone numb from my tenure on the bus seat. And in all honesty my lodging concerns were less for the newbie trainers and more for the stupid twenty-something writer who had hoped to forego sleeping in the woods for at least one more night.

Roy shrugged. "People don't go on Pokemon journeys to _not_ go camping," he pointed out.

"Fine," I snapped. "Then hang out in the Poke Mart."

Roy raised his eyebrows at me. "Do you think a town without a Pokemon Center really has a Poke Mart?"

It's possible I deserved that.

"Then go to the corner store and buy some fruit snacks or something," I suggested, getting a little frustrated. I couldn't stop staring at twin windmills that stood in the distance. From my vantage point they looked like two swirling eyes bent on hypnotizing me into a senseless, sleepy trance.

"We already have all the food we can fit into our bags," Daphne pointed out, struggling to lift her overstocked backpack.

"Then just… I don't know, check out the windmills or something!" I said, waving a dramatic hand in the direction of the spinning blades.

"What are we supposed to do with windmills?" Roy asked flatly, as though disappointed that I hadn't laid out a tourist schedule for him and Daph for the periods in which I would be busy doing book-related things.

I said nothing for a moment, trying not to think of razor sharp edges and Roy's neck and the things he could do with windmills. Finally I suggested with a dark little chuckle, "If you brought a sword than you could tilt at them."

"…Why would I tilt at windmills?" Roy repeated, in a tone that suggested that he was certain I was losing my mind and was readying himself to tackle me should I make any sudden or violent moves.

"Never mind," I said, feeling the sense of depression that falls when someone doesn't understand my jokes. An idea occurred to me and I brightened slightly.

"Our illustrious champion Lyra's family home has got to be around here somewhere," I said, turning to Daphne. "Maybe you could check it out? Get a picture or something?"

Daphne found this much more agreeable than picking a fight with seemingly innocent windmills and Roy couldn't find a reason to disagree, so I let them scoot off carrying all of the gear beyond the carry-on bag I'd brought on the bus.

I didn't even bother to get out the assortment of maps I'd gathered in preparation for the task ahead. New Bark was small, and Elm's lab had to be the biggest building around. I didn't imagine it would be hard to find.

Perhaps it was the talk of fighting windmills that made humming the main theme from the musical version of Donphan Quixote irresistible. I stuck my chin out in the direction I thought I'd find the lab, finding renewed determination in the song.

"My destiny calls and I go," I sang quietly to myself as I struck out in the direction of a large (by New Bark standards) building with an impressive array of antennae on the roof.

* * *

My first look at the interior of the Elm Laboratory reminded me of home more than I'd expected. Oh, of course, my home is not strewn with smoking vials of chemicals, or surgical kits or pens of napping Pokemon. But my office space _is_ lousy with loose books, old snack wrappers, notebooks of scratchy handwriting and every bit of wall space is layered in post-it notes. In those aspects, Elm Lab was similar. I've frequently tried to justify my messy surroundings at home by saying it's appropriate to a literary-minded person such as myself. I'd always thought of science-types as being neater, more organized. But as Professor Elm himself stepped forward to greet me, his pockets jammed with notes to the point that some spilled out onto the floor as he walked, I knew I was in for a different type of science guy.

"Oh, Miss Gleason," he said with a smile as he stepped over a pile of books on move inheritance. He snapped off the gloves he'd been wearing before offering his hand for me to shake, so as to not smear me with Girafarig embryos or whatever it was he'd been working with. "I've been expecting you. Sorry for the mess," he added sheepishly. "I'd say I'm in the middle of something, but I always am."

As I drew back from the handshake I got a good look at him for the first time in person. Of course, I'd seen him on TV, but of course everyone looks weird on TV. At least, that's what I told myself the last time I appeared on the _Morning in Johto_ show—because my forehead cannot possibly look that big in real life.

In any case, my first instinct is to say that Professor Elm was young… which isn't quite accurate. He's certainly young if your idea of what a Professor should be looks like Professor Oak, but other than that… not really. I get the feeling that, despite that, he gets called "kid" at professorial conferences. If he wants to avoid that kind of commentary, he should probably shave off the bare beginnings of a goatee. But then again, that might be there to counteract the only slightly premature receding hairline. Or perhaps Professor Elm simply keeps himself too busy to bother shaving.

"I won't stay too long," I assured him. "I know it's close to dinner, so I'll keep my questions to the point." Admittedly this wasn't entirely for his benefit. The squished sandwich I'd had on the bus lo those many hours ago hadn't hit the spot for long.

He adjusted his glasses so the light from the ceiling flashed off of them for a second. "Oh, it's no trouble. I'm sure you can imagine. what with getting wrapped up in one project or another. that I'm used to having meals at irregular times."

"…But is your family used to it?" I asked uncertainly.

He gave a little laugh. "Well, they don't complain too much anymore," he answered.

…Which didn't necessarily mean they were okay with it. I couldn't help but notice that Professor Elm's aqua dress shirt bore no marks of being ironed, so perhaps Mrs. Elm has her own quiet revenge for the lack of order in their lives.

"Well, anyway," Professor Elm said, clapping his hands together, "should we get started? I hope you don't mind conducting our interview here in the lab."

"It's alright with me," I answered as he hefted some stacks of paper off of two folding chairs. "So… working on anything interesting lately?" I asked as I sat down in the newly cleared chair across from him

It had been more of a polite question then anything. I don't know exactly what I expected him to say in response. Maybe something like, "Oh, you know—science stuff!" and then he'd move on to the questions I'd really come there to ask. But no, he brightened at the question, and I realized with a dull sense of dread that he was going to give me a real answer—and not a brief one at that.

"Oh, it's a fascinating area of research," he enthused, taking the seat opposite me. "I'm working in conjunction with the Pewter Museum of Science on a subject that crosses over both my field of expertise and theirs." He paused. "You're familiar with mechanics of breeding, right?"

"Not as frequently as I'd like to be," I answered. It was a sad, weak little joke, but he didn't even seem to recognize it as one.

"Well then, you at least know that all breedable Pokemon that have been categorized thus far all reproduce in more or less the same way," he went forward. "Oh, there are individual rituals based on species and not all species can breed with all other species. But what I'm getting at is that all the Pokemon whose breeding patterns we've studied reproduce through egg-laying."

"Now, humans on the other hand, as I'm sure you're aware, give birth to live young," he added. "What's always struck us as rather odd, among scientists who specialize in Pokemon breeding, is that there is such uniformity to Pokemon reproduction, even among those who bare more biological similarities to human beings in some ways than to other Pokemon species."

"Take Miltank for example," he continued, waving a hand expressively in the air. "It's a classic example of a mammalian Pokemon. It's warm-blooded, has a four-chambered heart, has hair and, of course, the smoking gun here is the eponymous mammary glands."

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, catching a toe on some scattered notes on the floor as I did. It struck me as strange that this conversation had turned into a more scientific and verbose version of the time I'd gone on a tour of Moo Moo Farm and overheard a thirteen-year-old boy snicker to his friend something along the lines of "Miltank has titties."

"Now, I know we all enjoy Moo Moo Milk," Professor Elm added with a small smile as he casually wrote off the Moo Moo Milk-intolerant segment of the population. "But the actual intent of the milk is to nurse the Pokemon's young, just as humans nurse their offspring. Such an ability is largely obsolete in an oviparous creature whose young derive their nutrients from the yolk. Miltank's ability to lactate has largely become a means to acquire a beverage instead of a vital strategy for passing on sustenance and immunity to its offspring."

I felt we were straying somewhat from the point, so I opened my mouth to recalibrate the conversation. He spoke again, though, before I could get a word out.

"Now, why, you ask, would Miltank possess this feature more associated with live birth than egg-laying?" Elm continued, though, for the record, I did not ask. "Well, that's where the researchers and paleontologists at the Pewter Museum come in. We've theorized that perhaps at one point in history there was a split among Pokemon between those who gave birth to live young and those who would lay eggs, but that over time natural selection favored egg-laying and the more mammalian Pokemon that we have today are examples of creatures whose ancestors were placental mammals, but who adapted to become egg-laying ones."

"Fascinating," I said in a brittle voice—and in a way it was—it just wasn't terrifically relevant to the mental list of questions I wanted to ask. "But I wondered—"

"Oh, we've yet to make our case completely," Elm said, as though this answered the question I'd yet to ask. "But the fossil record does show a tremendous lack of fossilized eggs among the ancestors of mammalian Pokemon, and that certainly suggests we're on the right track. If it _does_ turn out a shift happened, then I have to wonder what prompted the shift. My current theory is that the uniformity of the breeding system allows for more cross-breeding between species of Pokemon, which in turn gives them all a better chance of reproductive success." He beamed at me, his face slightly shiny with the sweat of a discovery yet to be made. "After all, to have the kind of breeding compatibility that can allow such disparate creatures as a Skitty and a Wailord to breed is something quite spectacular."

"Yeah…" I said, finally getting to cut in as he took a breath. "My real question about that is how they found out those two could breed in the first place. I mean… who tried to get them to do it and how drunk were they?"

He looked slightly taken aback by this. "It's all just in the spirit of inquiry, I can assure you," he said, futzing with his white jacket in an attempt to shake out the wrinkles.

Ah, the good old spirit of inquiry. It makes for a great excuse in my field as well as his because it makes the asking of questions a _right_ …as in "_the public has a right to know."_ When you boil the phrase down it basically becomes "I want to know because I am nosy" but nosiness sometimes gets a bad rep. Humans are curious creatures by nature.

…And it is that curiosity that sometimes pushes us to the point of putting two drastically different sized animals in a cage to try to make them breed. Hmmm.

In that moment I couldn't say what exactly had led to Pokemon changing their breeding patterns to egg-laying (if Elm's theory is correct), but I knew that even if humans hadn't started it, they'd reinforced it. You can be a trainer without having at least a second-hand brush with the world of breeding, and many of the best trainers get downright obsessed with it. It's all to pick the best potential parents to create the best potential offspring. Species can be bred with other species to pass down moves that a Pokemon might normally not be able to learn. Immunity, strength, speed, talent and temperament… the keys to these lie in genetics. Natural selection has been replaced with very unnatural selection.

Of course, all this breeding a better Pokemon business has consequences. Pokemon are asked to breed more frequently than they would in the wild in pursuit of that perfect combination. Eggs are abandoned or destroyed if they do not fit the standard the trainer or breeder is pursuing. There are some that see this as a necessary process; something that's merely being done on a larger scale than nature could manage on its own—and that it has yielded incredible results. The Pokemon of today are not like the Pokemon of yesteryear.

But there are still others who balk at the process. Goldenrod Mayor Andrea Rawlings has referred to the activities of the highly lucrative breeding centers that take residence in the city as "nothing short of Poke-Eugenics." I get her point, but I rather think she's defanging her own argument with that term. Eugenics is far too serious and frightening a word to stick a "Poke" in front of.

I shook my head. The politics of breeding and eugenics. And to think, I'd just wanted to have a pleasant little chat about starters.

_Starters_. I blinked and saw my way in.

"So… under your theory," I began, "would any of the Johto starters have had ancestors that gave birth to live young?"

He looked somewhat crestfallen, as though I'd blundered into some very inconvenient examples. "Uh… well, no," he admitted. "Totodile, Chikorita and Cyndaquil all have traceable ancestors that we have egg-fossils of. As a matter of fact," he added, brow furrowing slightly, as though hitting upon a troubling fact, "Cyndaquil sort of puts a wrench in the whole thing. It's one of the precious few Pokemon with mammalian traits that we've found eggs for from its ancient counterparts. There are those who say that this discredits the entire theory, but I and my colleagues believe that Cyndaquil's monotreme ancestors are the exception and not the rule."

"I see," I said, making a big show of fidgeting in my chair and looking around the lab. "You wouldn't happen to have any starters here, would you? I'd love to get a look at them."

He brightened after this brush with inconvenient facts and I knew the subject had been successfully changed. "Back here," he said, standing up and gesturing toward a white-painted wire pen on the floor of the lab next to a desk with a computer monitor.

I scurried over to take a peek. I have to tell you, dear readers, that after the dense science talk about Pokemon breeding in antiquity and after my not so lovely thoughts about selective breeding, I needed a pick-me-up. The no-holds-barred injection of pure, unadulterated cuteness from that pen did the trick.

I immediately took out my Silph-Phone and snapped a picture of the little things—so much younger and smaller than the starters I usually see kids leading through Goldenrod. Totodile and Cyndaquil were napping in the corner, with Totodile curled around Cyndaquil leeching the fire-type's warmth to heat its cold, reptilian blood. Chikorita trotted up to the edge of the pen as soon as I got there, as though it had learned to expect treats from approaching humans. I quickly sent the photograph to Daphne, texting an "awww!" message consisting of more w's than someone with my literary training really should include. I'm not ashamed of the extra w's. I am, however, slightly ashamed of the multiple exclamation points.

"Cute, aren't they?" Elm asked, walking over to the cage with his hands in his pockets. "I'm expecting some kids from eastern Cherrygrove to be bused down this weekend. So I won't get to enjoy this trio's company in my lab for much longer."

"Kids?" I repeated, having satisfied myself enough with virtual cooing so as to not need to coo out loud. "How many?" I asked.

"Two as of now," Elm answered, leaning against the sturdy pen. "But a third might sign on before the week is over."

"Huh," I said to myself. "How do they decide who gets to pick first? Is it based on when you sign up?"

"That's what it defaults to," Professor Elm answered, pulling an only slightly linty treat from his pocket and fitting it through the wire cage to the waiting mouth of Chikorita, who chowed down on it greedily. "But only if the new trainers can't work out the order among themselves."

For some reason I'd never thought of the choice of three being changed to a choice of two or even no choice at all depending on how many trainers showed up. In movies and television shows about trainers it always seems to be about that epic choice between the three.

"It'd suck to wind up not getting your first choice just because someone else signed up before you," I said, half to myself.

"Well, some trainers aren't quite sure what they want and are happy to let others narrow it down for them," Professor Elm pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess so," I answered, as a thought suddenly occurred to me. "Plus I bet if they go second that they can just pick the Pokemon that their friend's is weak against."

"…That actually happens more often than you'd think," Professor Elm admitted, scratching at his cheek somewhat nervously.

"Kind of a dick move," I couldn't help but observe.

"Well… there are some who'd describe it more as good strategy," Elm said, voice heightening slightly.

"I suppose so," I admitted, feeling a sudden instinct for controversy rise within me. "So," I asked him slyly, "_strategically _speaking… which one's the best?"

"The best?" Elm repeated, slightly taken aback by the directness of the question.

"Yeah," I replied. "Even Professor Oak defers to you on the subject of Pokemon abilities and you've been passing out Johto starters to trainers for more than a decade. In your expert opinion, which Pokemon is the best pick?"

Chikorita seemed to be paying quite a lot of attention to Elm at this point. Even Totodile cracked an eye open and Cyndaquil lifted its head to hear the answer.

Elm waved a hand of surrender at me. "Oh, I can't make that decision," he said. "They're all wonderful Pokemon and each could do very well under the care of the right trainer. I don't think there's one right choice. It's all about which Pokemon is best for which trainer." As an afterthought, he added, "…and which trainer is best for which Pokemon."

"I see," I asked, slightly disappointed that I couldn't goad him into taking a hard line, but not at all surprised by that fact. "You know… come to think of it, wouldn't it be easier to find the right Pokemon for the right trainer and vice versa if you offered more types as starters?"

He gripped the top bar of the cage and sighed. "It's been a suggestion for years, actually. In fact, there's a group of Connoisseurs up in Unova that's quite emphatic about it. And there's certainly some merit to the idea that not everyone's ideal Pokemon is one of these three." He took off his glasses and cleaned them against his white jacket. "But you've got to appreciate the simplicity of the system we have here—the kind of simplicity that works well. The three-starter system allows us to provide a balanced and rather self-contained choice. There's a network at work here. Fire is weak against water, water against grass and grass against fire. Even young trainers who haven't learned the more complicated terms of type match-ups can understand how these three work together, and, from that springboard, they can go forward to learning about the other types."

"Not to mention that we already have a sophisticated breeding system for supplying these three Pokemon. Expanding the system would require a lot of thought and work. The thinking is that if a trainer does not wish to have any of these starters, that they could catch a Pokemon of their own, or buy one," Elm explained.

He leveled a calculating look at me. "I take it your first Pokemon wasn't a starter, Miss Gleason?"

"Me?" I asked, tearing my gaze away from the creatures in the cage. "No… uh… actually mine was a Bellsprout," I confessed.

"Ah, so you're a grass-type fan, then?" Professor Elm asked pleasantly.

"Chika!" the Chikorita in the cage called cheerily.

"Uh… not really," I said, wincing. "I don't have the Bellsprout anymore."

At this comment, the Chikorita in the cage lost all of its budding affection for me and went to skulk in the back of its cage by the water bowl.

* * *

The local corner store at the very least had a microwave and a frozen food section, so an unevenly cooked assortment of hot pockets made up our last meal before we hit Route 29. There were no tables or chairs around, so we simply sat on the sidewalk outside the store, bathed in fluorescent light and listening to the mostly muffled sound of the cashier's radio on the other side of the shop door.

As Daphne reached over to wipe a bit of stray marinara sauce from Roy's cheek, I looked for about the sixth time at the photograph Daphne had furnished me with.

It seemed like such a normal house. Blue pointed roof, polished wooden door, red mailbox, trash at the end of the driveway… there was no halo of greatness about it that said it was the house of a champion. Of course, perhaps that was because it was really the _former_ house of a champion. Yes, Lyra maintains her address there, but the fact is that she's been living in Saffron for the better part of a year now. Who can blame her for not spending too much time around here? Anyway, I understand it that she's currently dating Fintan Gallagher, lead singer of the Saffron-based, fire-type themed boy-band The Charming Manders . I tell you this not because I enjoy celebrity gossip or even because I think it will still be true by the time this book is published—I don't—but because I'd like to consider this a little time capsule of information.

Celebrity teen romances, I tell ya.

Small towns do not always have small people. There are people like our champion Lyra who have immense talent in a game that we seem to have decided as a society is of the utmost importance and value. And there are people like Professor Elm who can wonder deep and occasionally incomprehensible things about the essence of life itself—thoughts which probably result in something lasting and life-changing enough to justify skipping a few dinners. Lyra left. Elm stayed.

When Daphne had handed me the photograph of Lyra's disappointingly ordinary childhood home, she told me that she and Roy were not the only ones visiting the site. Several through-hikers from Blackthorn City were crowded around the house. They'd passed Daphne their camera to take a group picture in front of the place, after clearly sensing there was an expert in their midst. They'd been wandering about uncertainly, she said. It was like they wanted to play tourist at the house of the champion, but there was nothing to tour.

It wasn't surprising to hear that people wanted to see the place—for trainers to pay homage to the current talent-to-beat. New Bark could've capitalized on it. They could've had guided tours, historical sites, they could've set up an infrastructure including hotels and restaurants to encourage people to book their vacations down here. They could've built a friggin' _rollercoaster_.

But they didn't. Making the place interesting would've been sort of a betrayal of the simplicity they claimed. Charming, quaint and salt-of-the-earth… these qualities start to lose their authenticity when polished with a veneer of tourism. It becomes boxed up, pre-packed, fake.

I knew in that moment that I would've taken fake any day over what New Bark had to offer me. I also knew for a fact that, in the coming days as we would strike out onto the hiking roads and spend our nights in tents eating meals cooked over a wisp of flames and a pile of sticks, that I would soon long for the creature comforts and high society of even New Bark town.


End file.
